Business group sets minority hiring goal
Diverse leaders sought to help city reach potential
Two years ago, the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce conducted a routine survey of its 1,800 member companies.
For years, top executives had mentioned racial inequality in the metro area as an issue.
This time, it was their main concern. “It had never risen to the very top,” MMAC Executive Vice President Julie Granger said in an interview.
The MMAC created its own prosperity index to compare Milwaukee with other cities on seven measures. Milwaukee’s white population ranked sixth on the prosperity index. The area’s African American and Hispanic populations ranked dead last — 21 out of 21 comparison cities. Metropolitan Milwaukee also had the greatest prosperity gap between populations.
“I think everyone in the community
and the business community is pretty aware that there are great discrepancies in these populations,” Granger said. “But I think seeing it in black and white and seeing it in comparison to other communities was pretty striking.”
Thursday night, the MMAC announced a regionwide diversity and inclusion initiative and shared the results of its yearlong look at the racial disparity in Milwaukee’s workforce. The idea is to remake Milwaukee’s business community. MMAC officials said the community is at a tipping point, and without major change, it will stagnate.
“When Milwaukee’s companies and community make an intentional effort to ensure that their doors are open to everyone, more of our young people will want to build a career here and more talented employees will want to move here,” incoming MMAC Chair Jonas Prising said in a news release. “When 46% of U.S. employers cannot find the skilled talent they need, becoming a Region of Choice for all — where anyone from any background would want to live and work — is how our people, our business and our community reach their full potential.”
Prising is the chairman and CEO of Manpower Group.
While around 16% of people in the four-county metropolitan area are black, they hold just 4.7% of management positions. More than 6% of the population is Hispanic, but they make up 3.4% of managers. The picture is similar for employment overall.
The MMAC set two goals for the region by 2025 — increase African American and Hispanic management by 25% and total employment by 15%. It’s asking Milwaukee companies join the commitment.
“This is hopefully realistic and aspirational,” Granger said in an interview. “This is one narrow focus of a larger challenge in our community.”
Data from 2019 will serve as a baseline, and the MMAC said it plans to report progress annually. Before the official announcement at the meeting, 64 companies had signed on, including some of the area’s largest employers, such as Northwestern Mutual, Harley-Davidson, Rockwell Automation, GE Healthcare, Johnson Controls and MillerCoors.
The demographic shift taking place around Milwaukee, and across the country, is one driver of the need to make workplaces reflective of the community. Younger generations are less white than those who have historically comprised the workforce.
“Diversity is simply a reality,” Granger said. “Learning how to embrace that diversity and leverage it is what this is trying to do.”
The area is also facing a worker shortage with retirements and a low birth rate.
The MMAC conducted a survey of African American and Hispanic managers in the area to hear why the disparity continues to exist. Common career hurdles indicated by the respondents included a lack of role models in leadership, limited exposure to opportunities and being overlooked.
“Something needs to change,” Granger said. The MMAC is at the beginning by forming a task force to create strategies.
“With this sort of work there is not a silver bullet,” said Chris Rowland, global diversity officer at Manpower Group. Rowland will lead the task force.
“There is not going to be one approach that we’re going to do these one or two or five things and the needle is going to be moved. It will be a multi-pronged approach,” he said.
“But we think the role of the task force is not only identifying strategies but the leading indicators that change is being made at an incremental stage.”
Sarah Hauer can be reached at shauer@ journalsentinel.com or on Instagram @HauerSarah and Twitter @SarahHauer. Subscribe to her weekly newsletter Be MKE at jsonline.com/bemke.